


Running Towards a Vanished Youth

by TheRealProtector



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F, Harrow-centric, This is gtn compliant folks you’ve been warned, its angst time babey, right after Book 1 ends so y’all know what that means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25440526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRealProtector/pseuds/TheRealProtector
Summary: Harrow does not allow herself to wish for what she cannot have.Wishing is a weakness she has never been able to afford, with the weight that sits heavy on her narrow, undeserving shoulders.
Kudos: 14





	Running Towards a Vanished Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short Drabble that got stuck in my head. Forgive me, please. Also, feel free to offer criticism- I did write this at 3am, so.

Harrow does not allow herself to wish for what she cannot have. 

Wishing is a weakness she has never been able to afford, with the weight that sits heavy on her narrow, undeserving shoulders. She is the legacy of 200 children, dead in her name. There are contingencies to plan for, a dying house’s reputation to falsify, and always, her own self to improve. 

Nonetheless, she finds herself wishing for Gridd- 

Nav- 

_ Gid- _

The names and titles no longer sit comfortably on her tongue. She rolls the feel of them around her mouth like a lemon candy, trying to turn sour back to sweet. But the Before feels like a distant memory, and all that remains is the bitter aftertaste. It does her no good to remember what is now dead and gone. There are things better left buried; this she knows. Harrow cannot turn back time, and as a rule, she has no use for infeasible wishes. They only ever serve to torture her, to taunt her, to remind her of what she cannot have.

Nonetheless, the thought seeps into her brain like rain through loose ground: she should be able to do this one impossible thing. She is _the_ Ninth House Necromancer. She can perform necromantic feats no one else could even dream up. She is Harrowhark Nonagesimus, and she has never requested anything for herself in this life- is it so much to ask that she be granted this one boon? 

But no. She is the legacy of 200 children, dead in her honor.She has used up- (internalized, absorbed, _stolen_ )- so much more than she has ever wanted. She cannot ask for any more, for fear of what it would cost. 

Her Cav-

(And this is the worst name of them all, this one _burns_ in the thinking-)

Harrow finds herself thinking of Her far too frequently. When she forgets herself, she finds herself remembering the incandescent blaze of Her hair when the blinding light on the First hit it on entry. When she sees Camilla’s blade, she thinks of the undisputed concentration on Her face as She dueled, of Her savage grin and wild excitement in success. And oh, when Harrow drifts off, she remembers how She looked in that pool, the softness of Her skin and the shape of Her body and feel of Her breath ghosting over Harrow’s neck. It is always too much. It is never enough. 

But she is Harrowhark of the Ninth, and she knows that dreaming is for those who are too weak to face the reality that confronts them. She refuses to be weak. She is the legacy of 201, now, and that one, that single addition, it cannot be the load that drives her to her knees. She will not let it be. And yet. 

And yet.

These days, Harrow finds herself wishing.


End file.
